Hunters find body that could be the remains of a fugitive

Hunters in a forested area south of Marion Saturday found a decomposed body police are calling John Doe but believe could be the remains of a fugitive who eluded capture in the area last winter.
Smyth County Investigator B.C. “Chip” Shuler said Monday the body could be the remains of David Wayne Richardson of Kelly Hill Road, Atkins, who is believed to have fled into the mountains around Attoway in February after being charged with felonious breaking and entering with the intent to commit a felony.
The search began at Attoway Cemetery at the foot of the mountains where police found Richardson’s Dodge SUV. That discovery came as Chris Jerome Langston of 422 Spruce Street, Marion, took out a warrant on Richardson after reporting to police that Richardson entered his dwelling and threatened him, Marion Police Lt. Rex Anders said.
In the days that followed, cadaver dogs trained to find bodies, and numerous officers on the ground from the county and town police offices and the Virginia Department of Corrections that set up a grid search, turned up no clue to Richardson’s whereabouts.
Shuler said the body has been taken to the medical examiner’s office in Roanoke for identification. If the body is Richardson’s, Shuler said, the identification should come quickly through comparisons to records on file.
“If it is him, he’ll be in the database as a felon,” Shuler said.
Court records show Richardson is a convicted felon serving seven years of probation. He was arrested in January 2002 and tried in March of that year on abduction charges and using a firearm in the commission of a felony. He was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment with nine years and four days suspended, and three years in prison on the firearms charge.